I was initially looking forward to the culinary travel writing seminar; however, I ended up finding the cider tasting and dim sum seminars much more interesting and informative. Gowan's Heirloom Cider conducted the cider tasting and I felt that they did a terrific job of providing a lot of info in a relatively short time period. It was a nice balance of lecture and cider tasting. We learned about how ciders are made, the differences between mass and craft cider; where the apples come from; what 'local' means and how to identify different styles of cider. We also learned that there's a California Cider Competition. Who wouldn't want to be a judge for that panel? Sign me up!

At the tea and dim sum seminar, the Confucius Institute at UC Davis shared a lovely presentation on the history of tea and dim sum.. We tasted several different kinds of Chinese teas and learned how the various teas are grown and processed. We also gained insight as to the role of dim sum in the Chinese lifestyle and were given samples of the most popular dim sums.